David Hockney, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp, from Moving Focus, 1984, is one of the most lively and visually inventive interior scenes from David Hockney’s landmark Moving Focus series, created during one of the most experimental periods of the artist’s career. The work presents Hockney’s Pembroke Studios in London, transforming an ordinary creative workspace into an engaging investigation of perspective, color, spatial movement, and visual memory.

By the early 1980s, Hockney had become increasingly dissatisfied with the fixed viewpoint of traditional Renaissance perspective. Influenced by Cubism, his photographic “joiners,” and his continuing study of how the eye moves through an environment, he developed compositions in which several angles and moments of observation could exist within a single image. The Moving Focus series became one of the clearest expressions of these ideas, bringing together interiors, portraits, architecture, and everyday objects through constantly shifting viewpoints.

Rather than presenting the studio from one stable position, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp arranges chairs, tables, a lamp, artwork, and architectural details within a deliberately distorted interior. The vivid blue chairs immediately attract attention, while bold red floor lines and sharply angled walls create a space that appears to tilt and unfold around the viewer. The loose outlines and simplified forms give the image a playful quality, but its carefully constructed perspective reveals a sophisticated exploration of how depth can be represented on a flat surface. The result is unmistakably Hockney: colorful, intelligent, energetic, and visually engaging.

Works from Hockney’s 1980s period are highly valued for combining familiar domestic subjects with major conceptual and technical experimentation. Within the Moving Focus series, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp is particularly desirable for its vivid palette, recognizable studio setting, balanced composition, and limited production. Signed impressions remain increasingly difficult to acquire, especially examples retaining strong color and complete margins.

Produced in collaboration with the legendary master printers at Tyler Graphics, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp is a color lithograph printed on luxurious HMP handmade paper. Published by Tyler Graphics Ltd. in 1985, each standard-edition impression was signed and dated “84” in pencil, individually numbered, and marked with the publisher’s blindstamp. The full sheet measures approximately 18⅞ by 22 inches. The standard edition consisted of only 98 impressions, accompanied by 18 artist’s proofs.

Museum Collections:

The significance of Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp is reflected by its inclusion in the permanent collections of several internationally recognized museums, including:

Tate, London

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Art Institute of Chicago

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Its presence in these prestigious institutions underscores the importance of both the Moving Focus series and Hockney’s innovative contributions to late twentieth-century interior art and printmaking.

This example, numbered from the limited edition of only 98 and hand signed and dated by David Hockney, represents an outstanding opportunity to acquire one of the artist’s most recognizable and engaging print editions. Combining rarity, historical significance, exceptional craftsmanship, and one of the most inventive periods of Hockney’s career, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp is an important work for serious collectors of modern and contemporary art.

David Hockney’s Moving Focus series, created between 1984 and 1986, is one of the most ambitious print projects of his career. Moving beyond traditional fixed perspective, Hockney used shifting viewpoints, fragmented forms, expressive drawing, and vivid color to explore how people experience subjects over time. Featuring portraits, interiors, still lifes, chairs, and views of the Hotel Romano Angeles in Mexico, the series was produced with Kenneth Tyler using innovative combinations of lithography, etching, screenprinting, collage, and handmade papers. Together, the works represent a major achievement in modern printmaking and a powerful exploration of movement, perspective, and memory.

The works in David Hockney’s Moving Focus Series (1984–1986) include: Conversation in the Studio, Tyler Dinning Room, Pembroke Studio Interior, Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp, Two Pembroke Studio Chairs, The Perspective Lesson, Amaryllis in Vase, Red Celia, Celia in Green Hat, Hotel Acatlan: First Day, Hotel Acatlan: Second Day, Hotel Acatlan: Two Weeks Later, Views of Hotel Well I, Views of Hotel Well II, Views of Hotel Well III, Walking Past Two Chairs, An Image of Gregory, An Image of Celia, An Image of Celia, State I, An Image of Celia, State II, An Image of Celia Study, Portrait of Mother I, Portrait of Mother II, Portrait of Mother III, An Image of Ken, White Porcelain, A Picture of Two Chairs, Number One Chair.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:

David Hockney Pembroke Studio with Blue Chairs and Lamp, from Moving Focus, 1984 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and related texts. Copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work.

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, catalogue number 263.
Tyler Graphics, catalogue number 275.

1. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.